Posted 5/27/2017 8:01 PM (GMT 0)
I completed the CyberKnife yesterday at Winthrop in their Manhattan facility.
I will be taking hormone deprivation therapy (Eligard) for another 6 months.
Does anyone have any suggestions about what I should expect in the next 6 months - 1 year? Are there any specific follow-up tests that I should be getting? How do I tell how effective the treatment has been. The HDT treatment will mask the PSA tests for a while.
So far I have had minimal side effects.
The people there said that the side effects I had to date were probably due to the Ducolax that I had to take every day as part of the preparation. I was also on a very restricted low fiber diet designed to minimize gas and reduce complications. It will be good to eat a wider variety of food again.
Dr. Haas said that the side effects typically peak the week after treatment and then diminish.
I will see Dr. Haas for a follow-up review in about 2 weeks.
5 days. The dosage was 36.25 gr ( 5 x 7.25). I think the margin was 5 mm + 4 mm laterally.
It was about 20 minutes per radiation session, preceded by getting Amifostine rectally to reduce radiation damage and waiting 20 minutes for it to be absorbed. Each visit lasted about 1 hour + wait time when they were backed up. All the people were helpful and very nice.
The radiation treatment experience meant lying on my back, listening to music and watching the CyberKnife machine rotate around me. It would pause for about 30 seconds at each stop, click a few times and then move on.
I met and compared notes with several other people who were getting treated last week. Interestingly, several had been referred to this Winthrop location by Dr. Alan Katz who used to be associated with Winthrop. I suspect this was because this location (Manhattan, 66th St. & Amsterdam Avenue) is a more convenient location for many people.